Ender's Review: Feb. 13

Conscripts; Myth of Democratic Peace; Isabel Paterson Biography; Oklahoma!; these articles have their titles and text in this color and are featured this week in -

Ender's Review of the Web

Web articles of likely interest to individualists found during the week of Feb. 13 - 19, 2005.

Table of Contents: (Click on the name to go to that section)
Political Liberty, Life in Amerika, Ordered Liberty without the State;
Spreading Decentralism, The New World Hegemon, Politics by Other Means;
Spontaneous Order, Nonspontaneous Disorder, War Is The Health Of The State;
Bits of History, War and Peace, Great Individuals In History;
Culcha', The lighter side, Deep Thought, Miscellany.

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Political Liberty
Articles showing a positive influence of political action on the cause of Liberty.

Freedom To Read!
by Nat Hentoff from The Village Voice
"Enthusiastically supporting the Vermillion Public Library is Anna Maulina, president of the Library Association of Latvia, in Riga. Speaking for 'Eastern Europeans who have experienced Communism,' she says: 'I hope that the time will come for Cuba to become a real isle of freedom where free song will flow over free valleys, where no librarian or any other person will be arrested for disseminating information'."
http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0507,hentoff,61076,6.html

Full Frontal Liberty: Immigration
by Rachel Mills from MensNewsDaily.com
"Even if they didn't know their ABC's and 123's they were still human beings capable of doing an honest day's work and contributing in this country. In those days we didn't have socialism in the land of the free and the home of the independent. In those days they were welcome to come on over and clean up after us and deliver our milk. People supported themselves. And the country was happy for them to do it."
http://www.mensnewsdaily.com/archive/m-n/mills-rachel/2005/mills021705.htm

Fighting Pseudo-Science with Science Fiction
by Elizabeth Whelan from A Better Earth
"When Crichton’s fictional hero Dr. Kenner informs an environmentalist lawyer that there are many studies that do not support the theory of global warming, the attorney retorts with a knee-jerk response: 'these studies are probably financed by the coal industry'."
http://www.abetterearth.org/article.php/975.html

Life in Amerika
Articles depicting the negative impact of politics on the cause of Liberty.

The Lynne Stewart Verdict -- Stretching the Definition of "Terrorism" to New Limits
by Elaine Cassel from CounterPunch
"No warrant is necessary for the surveillance to occur. Nor is specific notice to the attorney or the client that they will be monitored; according to the regulations. Rather, routine notice that their communications 'may' be monitored is enough. The government eavesdropped on Stewart's communications with Rahman - and these communications, along with her subsequent communications with the media, are the sole basis for her conviction."
http://www.counterpunch.org/cassel02142005.html

The War on Pain Sufferers
by Sheldon Richman from The Future of Freedom Foundation
"It was inevitable that drug prohibition would seriously affect the practice of medicine, all assurances to the contrary notwithstanding. And you thought prohibition would merely deprive junkies of their fixes. So goes the Law of Unintended Consequences."
http://www.fff.org/comment/com0502g.asp

And now they won't let the kids watch 'Roots'
by Vin Suprynowicz from Las Vegas Review-Journal
"Last week, we learned the principal at Canyon Springs High School has been busily censoring an original play about black history by a teacher there, removing any reference to the Ku Klux Klan and any use of the racial epithet which we all know was commonly used in slavery times (and even today). But 'Roots'? Now they won't let the kids watch 'Roots'?"
http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/2005/Feb-13-Sun-2005/opinion/466858.html

Ordered Liberty without the State
Some people say it's Anarchy, some say it's not possible. It is an interesting topic.

The Myth of Democratic Peace
by James Ostrowski from LewRockwell.com
"The pursuit of peace requires that we renounce the use of aggressive political force to achieve our goals. This would limit the use of force to self-defense or perhaps the modest amount of force required to maintain a minimal state republic. More than this can no longer be justified or tolerated. More than this now threatens our civilization and our survival." This is long enough for Deep Thought, but I thought it fit well here.
http://www.lewrockwell.com/ostrowski/ostrowski72.html

Democracy
by weebies from Strike The Root
"The basic principle of democracy, of self rule, is sound and in accordance with the principles of anarchy. The state has subverted the concept of democracy to enslave people to the dictates of the state and its rulers."
http://www.strike-the-root.com/51/weebies/weebies6.html

Absorbed By the State
by Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr. from Ludwig von Mises Institute
"How to avoid the trap? How does any political movement that begins by being opposed to the state avoid being absorbed by the state? The most crucial step is to decide what you are for and what you are against from the very outset."
http://www.mises.org/fullstory.aspx?Id=1750

Spreading Decentralism
Articles demonstrating an increase in the dispersal of power.

"Another One Bites the Dust"
by Alan R. Weiss from The Libertarian Enterprise
"[I]n the end, we must change the culture of this society and individual opinions, and a focus on books, movies, films, music, and especially education of young people is far more important and likely to succeed than continuing to run well-meaning but unappealing candidates to an audience ill-prepared to accept our messages."
http://www.ncc-1776.com/tle2005/tle306-20050213-02.html

The gatekeepers crumble
by Vox Day from WorldNetDaily.com
"The blogosphere is still unlikely to completely replace the legacy media as a primary producer of news, although a grassroots replacement of the AP is neither unthinkable nor technologically impossible. After all, television did not eliminate radio, nor did radio eliminate print. But the blogs do appear to be supplanting the op-ed pages and cable TV commentariat as opinion leaders."
http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=42842

Bound by Choice - A modest step toward separation of marriage and state
by Jacob Sullum from Reason
"Unlike the 'no-fault' laws adopted in the '60s and '70s, covenant marriage does not replace the existing divorce rules for everyone -- only for couples who choose it. Hence it expands individual freedom and points the way toward a separation of state and marriage under which the government's role would be limited to enforcing voluntary contracts."
http://www.reason.com/sullum/021805.shtml

The New World Hegemon
Depictions of the coming Imperial power

The outsourcing of prisoners
by Robyn E. Blumner from St. Petersburg Times
"Some things you read about the Bush administration make you feel as though the ground has shifted under your feet, that time-tested rules about the limits of government are no longer valid and that who we are as Americans has been irreversibly altered."
http://www.sptimes.com/2005/02/13/Columns/The_outsourcing_of_pr.shtml

Conservative Sycophants Lose Credibility
by Paul Craig Roberts from Antiwar.com
"Those conservatives who have not joined the New Brownshirts might ask themselves why the mighty Bush apparatus and its legions of propagandists and sycophants feel so threatened by a few expressions of dissent, a few facts, and a simple ethical statement. Could it be that they know that their edifice of lies will come crashing down if anyone is allowed to utter dissent or a word of truth?"
http://www.antiwar.com/roberts/?articleid=4854

Eason Jordan said an upsetting thing: But is it true?
by David T. Wright from The Last Ditch
"Here's the interesting part: following Jordan's resignation, the entire controversy within the Ministry of Truth has centered on these questions: a) do bloggers have too much power and influence (one person on Lehrer actually said that the media no longer have 'sovereignty' over the news); and b) what ever possessed Jordan to say such an outrageous thing. I have looked and looked, but I have found nobody in the Mainstream Media who has debated whether or not what Jordan said is true."
http://www.thornwalker.com/ditch/dtw_eason.htm

Politics by Other Means
War, rumors of war, and politicians fomenting war.

Totally Gauche -- What a new poll says about left vs. right.
by Matt Taibbi from New York Press
"Even after working as a political reporter for many years, I still have absolutely no idea what the American versions of left and right mean -- what they mean in an ideological sense, that is."
http://nypress.com/18/7/news&columns/taibbi.cfm

$250 Billion and Counting
by Charles V. Peña from Reason
"From the beginning, the Pentagon has claimed that it could not estimate the costs of the Iraq war (and subsequent occupation and reconstruction) because it is impossible to accurately predict the war's duration, its destruction, and the extent of rebuilding afterward."
http://www.reason.com/hod/cp021605.shtml

Now He Has the Power
by John Nichols from The Nation
"When a backer bellowed the updated Harry Truman slogan that became a mantra for Dean's presidential campaign--'Give 'em hell, Howard!'--a wicked grin rippled across Dean's face. 'I'm trying to be restrained in my new role,' he chirped. 'I may be looking for a three-piece suit.' Then he burst into laughter and exclaimed, 'Fat chance!' "
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20050307&s=nichols

Spontaneous Order
Articles showing decentralized successes.

Are HOAs Anti-Freedom?
by Scott McPherson from The Future of Freedom Foundation
"HOAs are a private, not a governmental institution. House prices can be affected by any number of factors. ... This is a private matter to be dealt with through contractual agreement, which is precisely why HOAs are so popular -- especially in regions where housing prices are rising the most rapidly."
http://www.fff.org/freedom/fd0411d.asp

Natural selection as we speak
by Juliette Blevins from eurekalert.org
"Blevins argues that humans learn sound patterns on the basis of their exposure to hundreds of thousands of examples of them in the first years of life. Where universal tendencies exist, they are emergent properties of language as a self-organizing system."
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2005-02/m-nsa021605.php

Pair Merit Pay, School Choice
by Marie Gryphon from Cato Institute
"As California wrestles with its requirements, statistical obfuscations may make it hard to tell which teachers are on course. But the governor should not give up on merit pay. Instead, he should tie his merit pay proposal to the expansion of school choice in California. School choice and merit pay are the twin beacons of market-based reform."
http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=3682

Nonspontaneous Disorder
Articles showing centrally planned disasters.

Farmed Robbery
by Thomas DiLorenzo from Ludwig von Mises Institute
"The politicians responsible for this legalized plunder will be the only other beneficiaries, as farmers like Bednarz will be sure to fatten their campaign coffers with some of their windfall wealth. Texas cotton farmers as a whole will pocket some $637,500,000 as a result of this racket, again giving the hapless taxpayers absolutely nothing in return."
http://www.mises.org/fullstory.aspx?Id=1746

The Peril of Unlimited Government
by Arthur Foulkes from The Foundation for Economic Education
"Governments have moved well beyond the vital but strictly limited functions outlined by Bastiat, Jefferson, and others. Governments have become arrogant, plundering, and costly instruments of social engineering, wealth redistribution, and 'economic development.' As a result, they have encouraged the politicization of nearly every facet of life...."
http://www.fee.org/vnews.php?nid=6646

Greenspan and Banker Alchemy
by George F. Smith from Strike The Root
Far from criticizing fractional reserve banking as a form or fraud or embezzlement, he saw it as a legitimate and important function in promoting a robust economy -- with the only drawback being that, 'periodically,' bankers got overzealous in their efforts 'to meet the production requirements of the economy.' That's the way he saw it in 1966, and that's how he sees it now."
http://www.strike-the-root.com/51/smith/smith2.html

War Is The Health Of The State
War is the ultimate State intervention in society.

The Terrible Tens
by Jim Davies from Strike The Root
"Soon after inauguration, having won the 1916 election on a promise of continuing to keep America out of the European bloodbath, Woodrow Wilson persuaded Congress to declare war on Germany, a wicked double-cross that set an example for FDR to copy almost verbatim 24 years later."
http://www.strike-the-root.com/51/davies/davies5.html

Remember Pearl Harbor
by Christopher Manion from Antiwar.com
"Taxes will skyrocket, government powers will mushroom, and the draft will be brought back with a vengeance. And, like my father and his companions in America First before World War Two, opponents of this war will be expected to retire to the bleachers and cheer, wondering all the while how their drafted sons and daughters are faring out there in some distant desert far from home."
http://www.antiwar.com/orig/manion.php?articleid=4875

Bush's New Defense Budget
by Robert Higgs from The Independent Institute
"Among the prominent items left out of the regular Pentagon budget are the amounts to be expended in prosecuting the seemingly perpetual wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, which currently eat up approximately $5-6 billion per month. So far, the administration has insisted on financing these war expenditures for the most part out of 'emergency' supplemental appropriations."
http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=1464

Bits of History
The Past seen with a fresh look.

Remembering Presidents' Day
by Jonathan David Morris from The Free Liberal
"I guess what I’m trying to say here is, the fact that I can't recall what James Polk accomplished is, itself, his greatest accomplishment. That's why I don’t want to know more about him. I don't want to ruin his reputation. Same goes for Grover Cleveland. Here's a guy who waltzed in and out of D.C. without doing a single thing I can remember off the top of my head. In fact, the only thing I know is that he did nothing twice -- in two, non-consecutive terms. If you ask me, that makes him twice as good."
http://www.freeliberal.com/archives/000747.html

The Klan's Favorite Law - Gun control in the postwar South
by Dave Kopel from Reason
"After the Civil War, the defeated Southern states aimed to preserve slavery in fact if not in law. The states enacted Black Codes which barred the black freedmen from exercising basic civil rights, including the right to bear arms."
http://www.reason.com/hod/dk021505.shtml

Crime and Punishment: For a Return to a Parties-centered Justice System
by Christian Michel from Le Québécois Libre
"Since the rise of the central state, the justice administration has confiscated the grief, the pain, the resentment, the fear, the anger and the personal circumstances of both offenders and victims. It is morally right, and therefore efficient, to give justice back to the parties. Let them negotiate, with their advisors' assistance, what value the offence is worth to each of them, and what it is the offender can do in his situation to satisfy the victim he has rendered her justice."
http://www.quebecoislibre.org/05/050215-15.htm

War and Peace
Articles showing the nature of War.

Mothers Against The Draft
by Mary Starrett from NewsWithViews.com
"The draft is slavery. It is worse than slavery. Forcing a man or woman to work your fields is bad enough, forcing them to kill and die is another. ... Forced conscription will make your sons and daughters chattel of a government that feels it has a right to your children's very lives to advance a global agenda."
http://www.newswithviews.com/Mary/starrett59.htm

Prefiguration and prelude to the 2003 Iraq debacle
by Stephen J. Sniegoski from The Last Ditch
"When the Bush I administration fought the Gulf War against Iraq in 1991, with a bombing campaign and brief ground invasion, the American people were in ecstasy over a victory that was quick and (at least for Americans) largely bloodless. And unlike the case with Bush II's war, the United States was able to escape seemingly unscathed at the time."
http://www.thornwalker.com/ditch/snieg_prefiguration_01.htm

Laying the Ground Work for War -- First, They Attack the Past
by John Pilger from CounterPunch
"The unerring assumption is that 'we' in the dominant West have moral standards superior to 'them.' One of 'their' dictators (often a former client of ours, like Saddam Hussein) kills thousands of people and he is declared a monster, a second Hitler. When one of our leaders does the same, he is viewed, at worst like Blair, in Shakespearean terms."
http://www.counterpunch.org/pilger02192005.html

Great Individuals In History
Some people stand out from the crowd.

Astronomer - Nicolaus Copernicus : Feb. 19, 1473
from University of Zagreb
"By May 1514 Copernicus had written and discreetly circulated in manuscript his Commentariolus, the first outline of those arguments eventually substantiated in De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres, 1543). This classic work challenged the geocentric cosmology that had been dogmatically accepted since the time of Aristotle."
http://www.phy.hr/~dpaar/fizicari/xcopern.html

Libertarian - Frank Chodorov : Feb, 15, 1887
by Aaron Steelman from The Freeman: Ideas on Liberty
"In issue after issue of analysis, Chodorov kept the flame of the anti-statist, antiwar cause burning during some of classical liberalism's darkest nights. He approached myriad topics from the same perspective: voluntary, peaceful actions are moral and productive and should be encouraged; coercive actions are immoral and should be condemned."
http://www.fee.org/vnews.php?nid=3646

Actress - Susan Oliver : Feb. 13, 1932
by Betty Jones & Steve Carter from susanoliver.info
"Susan Oliver discovered early in life that her dream was to become an actress. Quite a dream for a young lady that at age fifteen hid in the balcony during her graduation ceremony from high school, because she was to shy to walk across the stage to get her diploma."
http://www.susanoliver.info/Biography.html

Culcha'
Books, Movies, TV, Media, Music, poetry, etc.

Oklahoma! (1955)
Reviewed by Tom Ender from Endervidualism
"Oklahoma was made in 1955 about a period that was about fifty years yet further in the past. Not only are the people in the movie mainly free, but the people of 1955 did not find this unusual. ... Perhaps through watching films like Oklahoma, the spark of liberty can be reignited...."
http://endervidualism.com/agora/oklahoma_1955.htm

Conscripts
by Russell Madden from Atlas
"Shoving aside the whiff of shame nagging at him, Bertarr released his hold and stood close before the soon-to-be-bloodied Conscript. 'You have two choices,' he said evenly. 'You can surrender before they attack and die for certain.' His gaze danced towards Flegler's stolid expression. A faint dip of the man's head encouraged him to continue. 'Or...you can choose to fight with every ounce of energy and power available to you'."
http://home.earthlink.net/~rdmadden/webdocs/Conscripts.html

To Thine Own Self Be True
by Susan Callaway from The Price of Liberty
"His first class, as always, was 'State Appreciation'. All of the 'benefits' of loyal citizenship were drilled into them as they repeated the 'loyalty oath' in unison. Large photographs of the 'Glorious Leaders' and the gaudy pale blue flag with red and white strips on the edges covered every available flat surface."
http://www.thepriceofliberty.org/05/02/17/trueself.htm

The lighter side
Humor, satire, cartoons, parodies, food, popular music and other things to amuse.

Torture Is Still Working for you
by Mark Fiore from The Village Voice
"Are you still nervous about the War on Terror...?"
http://villagevoice.com/news/0508,fiore,61275,9.html

What Do You Think? -- Failing Phys Ed Programs
from The Onion
"With obesity among children rising steadily, health experts say our school's physical education programs are woefully inadequate. What do you think?"
http://www.theonion.com/wdyt/index.php?issue=4107

Wrapping It For Christ
by Paul Krassner from New York Press
"The Catholic Church is faced with an interesting dilemma. On one hand, they are opposed to condoms as an artificial method of birth control. On the other hand, they're well aware that condoms can serve as a protection against disease."
http://www.nypress.com/18/7/news&columns/krassner.cfm

Deep Thought
Scientific and scholarly studies, philosophical essays, in-depth and longer articles

Isabel Paterson Biography Fills in Gaps in American Intellectual History
by Jeff Riggenbach from RationalReview.com
"She drifted into journalism when, having taken a job as secretary to a newspaper publisher, she made such a nuisance of herself criticizing the writing in his paper that, in exasperation, he offered her a job as an editorial writer. 'Let's see if she can do any better than the people she criticizes!' one can almost hear him saying to himself."
http://www.rationalreview.com/guest/021405.shtml

Money Is Time
by Russell Madden from Atlas
"Even when we struggle with the chains designed to limit our options and do succeed to whatever extend our abilities and the hampered market permit, insult is added to injury in the form of the myriad of taxes that snatch away nearly half of our working lives in a robbery that masquerades as the 'price' we pay for 'civilization.' Those individuals who work in our society need urgently to recognize that it is not really their money that flows into the coffers of the State: it is their lives."
http://home.earthlink.net/~rdmadden/webdocs/Money_Is_Time.html

Eco-Innovators -- Incentive to Innovate
by Chris Prunty from A Better Earth
"The point is, innovation means there is hope for alternative environmental solutions. ... It means, people care and are actively seeking products touting cleaner and more efficient energy production. Mankind need not rely on (much maligned) fossil fuels forever."
http://www.abetterearth.org/article.php/946.html

Miscellany
Articles not easily classified

Government Creates Economic Growth? It Just Ain't So!
by Jude Blanchette from The Foundation for Economic Education
"Madrick's teleocratic (ends-oriented) view of government begs many questions, most of which F. A. Hayek dealt with in The Road to Serfdom. Who decides what changes are to be promoted? Does the promotion of change come at the expense of property rights and liberty? How much power do we grant the government to bring about this change?"
http://www.fee.org/vnews.php?nid=6652

A Valentine for Your Unknown Soldier
by Teresa Whitehurst from Antiwar.com
"I do not want a national tomb for you, nor military medals and presidential honors. All I want is the end of these wars so that you can come home to me."
http://www.antiwar.com/orig/whitehurst.php?articleid=4823

In Search Of Men Who Want To Marry Mommy
by Fred Reed from FredOnEverything
"So little of what Maureen says tracks with the world I know. She thinks men don't like smart women. I know a lot of bright guys, and they all look for bright women. They just want agreeable bright women."
http://www.fredoneverything.net/Dowd.shtml

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